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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

THE Best Carrot Cake (and a helpful tidbit!)

Best Carrot Cake EVER.

Seriously. This is probably the best carrot cake I have ever had. When we were home for the holidays over Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law had made a wonderful carrot cake for us. It was the first time I had eaten a carrot cake with pineapple in it, and I thought the flavor was wonderful. I had been meaning to get the recipe from her, when I came across this version from The Pastry Queen. It sounded very similar, but with the addition of macadamia nuts, so I thought I would give it a try. Wow! I was not disappointed to say the least. My friends and family will tell you that I just could not stop talking about this cake!

The only problem I had with this cake was that I did not have enough frosting to frost the whole cake. I had enough to frost each layer, including the top, but not enough for the sides (and I don't tend to frost my cakes too heavily). I'm guessing that Rebecca frosts these very very lightly; otherwise, I have no idea how she could make that amount of frosting go such a long way. So, as I see it, you have 3 options with this cake:

- Keep the frosting recipe as is and make your frosting layers extremely thin, and frost the entire cake.- Keep the frosting recipe as is, frost your layers more moderately, and leave the sides of the cake bare.- Increase the frosting recipe by one-third, frost the layers more moderately, and frost the entire cake.

This cake is super moist and loaded with carrots, pineapple, coconut, and macadamia nuts. The frosting is creamy and the addition of the coconut cream really gives it a nice flavor and some depth. Do not substitute coconut milk for the coconut cream. Coconut cream is much thicker than coconut milk and contains less water. It can usually be found in the international foods aisle at larger grocery stores (or at Asian Supermarkets). You can, however, get coconut cream from coconut milk, but it will take a lot of coconut milk. Simply refrigerate your coconut milk. You'll notice that it separates - you want the thick, non-liquid part at the top - that's coconut cream. (For this recipe, you'll need 3 cans of coconut milk to yield the amount of coconut cream needed.)

Rebecca says that if you're feeling "energetic," you can decorate the top of the cake with leftover frosting. Not having any leftover frosting with which to decorate the cake, I decided to add some toasted coconut around the edges to jazz up the otherwise plain white cake.

The only change I would make to this next time would be to chop the macadamia nuts before adding them. It was a little awkward biting into such a soft cake and hitting these big pieces of nuts. And if you don't like macadamia nuts, then just leave them out. The cake would still be great without them.

You must try this cake. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Oh, and here's the "tidbit" I promised. Here are some step by step instructions on how you can easily make rounds to line your cake pans. This recipe instructs you to line three 9-inch cake pans with parchment paper rounds, and instead of tracing a circle around the bottom of the pan and then cutting it out, I'm going to show you this neat trick from Alton Brown which is much easier!

First, tear out a piece of parchment paper that is a little bit larger than the diameter of your cake pan.

Then take the top right corner and fold it down towards the left edge, making a triangle. There will be a little bit of excess along the bottom, don't worry about it.

Next take the top left corner of the triangle and fold it down towards the bottom right corner, creating another triangle.

Now fold your triangle in half width-wise.

Fold the triangle in half again.

Lastly, flip your cake pan over and place the tip of the triangle at the center of the pan. Cut the parchment paper where it hits the edge of the cake pan.

Unfold the parchment paper and voila! You have a circle that fits perfectly within your cake pan!

Tropical Carrot Cake with Coconut-Cream Cheese Frostingfrom The Pastry Queen, by Rebecca Rather

To Make the Cake:Preheat the oven to 350F. Arrange the nuts on a baking sheet in a single layer and toast them for 7 to 9 minutes, until golden and aromatic. Set aside to cool.

Place one oven rack one-third from the bottom of the oven and the second two-thirds from the bottom. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line three 9-inch cake pans with parchment paper rounds, grease with butter, and dust with flour (or spray with Baker's Joy).

Stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, coconut, and nuts in a large bowl. In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, oil, carrots, pineapple, and cream of coconut. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans. Stagger the cake layers on the oven racks so that no layer is directly over another. Set 2 layers on one rack and the third on the other. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. The cakes are done when they are golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their pans on racks for 5 minutes, then invert them onto the racks and cool completely, about 15 to 20 minutes.

To Make the Frosting:Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar in a large bowl on medium-high speed about 1 minute. Add the whipping cream, cream of coconut, and salt; beat until combined.

Place 1 cake layer on a serving plate and spread a thick blanket of frosting on top. Add the second layer, spread thickly with frosting, and top with the third layer. Cover the top and sides of the cake with an even layer of frosting. If you're feeling energetic and there is frosting left over, use a pastry bag fitted with a decorative tip to pipe a decoration around the top rim of the cake.

The cake can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated up to 4 days. Let it cool in the refrigerator about 1 hour before covering, to ensure the frosting has hardened and will not stick to the plastic wrap.

65 comments:

Ooo yum I love carrot cake! And the idea of coconut cream cheese frosting sounds delicious. I'll have to keep an eye out for that coconut cream. Am I crazy or did you forget to put the carrots in the ingredient list? I made a cake similar to this but mine had a white chocolate cream cheese icing (though you couldn't really distinguish the white chocolate flavour): http://www.eatmedelicious.com/2007/07/beginning-of-many-cake-adventures.html

carrot cake is one of my favorite desserts and i've tried many, many recipes in my 24 years. this one is extremely unique and i can't wait to try it!! in fact, my mouth is already watering in anticipation. :)

holy crap, that is a big chunk of cake! Somehow I like to trick into thinking that its okay to have two or three slices because there are some vegetables in it, right? But the frosting... oh the cream cheese frosting. Along with peanut butter frosting, it is one of my favorites. I could lick it by the spoon :)

I love carrot cake too. If you knew me as a child, you would realize how funny it is to hear me say that! Anyway, I use a recipe from Southern Living called Best Carrot Cake and it truly is the BEST cake ever. It has a buttermilk glaze that you put on top of each layer before the icing. Sinful, but delicious. I'm actually making it this weekend for a coworkers birthday. It also has pineapple, so I can attest to how moist that makes the cake. Yummo!

I have always been a bit put off by carrot cake with pineapple, is it really that good? I made a carrot cake and was just not happy about it so I would like to try again. I need to give something like this a try!

That's it. It's 2008 and I've got to make a carrot cake.(yes, it's sad but true, I have never made one). If you say this is the best ever, then I'll take your word for it and try it. Pictures don't lie, and those are scrumptious!

I really realy want to make this cake, but unfortunately i've found it really hard to find falked coconut in the uk and crushed pineapple. We have desicated coconut and chopped pineapple. I was thinking of toasting the coconut and crushing the pineapple, do you think this will be appropriate? I might have to go searching in speacilist shop. I love your blog by the way and the photography is amazing.

do you have fresh coconut? if you do, you can actually make your own flaked coconut by cooking it in a pan with sugar. i suppose you could use dessicated coconut but it won't be as sweet and i'm not sure how it would change the texture. you could also just omit it from this recipe, but it will have less coconut flavor if you do that.

for the pineapple - do you have access to other types of canned pineapple? if so, just put that in your food processor and give it a quick whirl and you'll have crushed pineapple. chopped fresh pineapple should be a suitable substitute too.

Thank you for your speedy response. I searched a few more shops and came across sweetened coconut, so hopefully that should do. I also found crushed pineapple, so i can finaaallly make the cake. Thanks loads, i shall let you know how it turned out :)

anonymous - Coco Lopez is just a Brand of coconut cream. you do not have to use that brand. You should, however use coconut CREAM, not coconut MILK. If you have trouble finding coconut cream, there are instructions within my post on how to get coconut cream from the coconut milk! Hope that helps and I hope you enjoy this cake, I love it!! :)

OMG what a perfect recipe for Carrot Cake Day! Jaime your pictures are amazing! and the recipe is quite intriguing. I LOVE carrot cake! I hope you don't mind but I just had to "grab" your link for today's Carrot Cake Day post! Thank you so much for sharing...

Jaime, I've had this before, and HAD the recipe and misplaced it. It was slightly different as I still have the coconut milk that mine had called for. It IS the BEST Carrot Cake ever. Thank you soo much for making my day~!!!!!!

I'll be making this for Easter! I'll post it on my blog and track it back to your blog since you've inspired the idea. When I was looking through some books, I noticed I had the book, THE PASTRY QUEEN by Rebecca Rather.

I baked this cake for Easter Sunday. It was the RAVE! You were right. Thanks for the tip.I've linked your blog. See below.http://bakingismyzen.blogspot.com/2010/04/tropical-carrot-cake-with-coconut-cream.html

Delish!! I have made this carrot cake three times now and I agree, it is definately in my opinion the best carrot cake ever!! I made it last week for my daughter's preschool and they all loved it so much that I had to print out the recipe for them. Thank you so much x

I made this cake this past weekend for my husband's birthday. It was terrific. This makes a very heavy cake. The only thing I did differently was that I used pecans, instead of macadamia nuts. That was my husbands request, and I did toast them as instructed in the recipe. It was still great with the pecans. Thanks for the recipe!

Jaime, well 3 yrs after you originally posted this, I am just now reading for the first time and I cannot WAIT to make this!! Wow...this looks like a keeper! Words cannot express how much I love a good carrot cake..love that Rebecca uses macadamia nuts / coconut cream..AND pineapple! Looks like everyone else has enjoyed it too! Best thing is, I have all these ingredients at home. Thx for posting this (3 yrs later-ha!):)

Jeane, I'm sorry this cake disappointed you. I assure you that those photos were taken by me, of the cake made from this very recipe. I have had several friends make this cake and tell me how much they love it. Perhaps it did not suit your tastes, but to say that the cake sucks is a bit harsh. I hope you find another carrot cake recipe that suits you better.

ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING! I am a non-baker (savory is my thing!) and followed these step by step instructions. This cake will be one of the few that I can repeat, recommend, go back to and seriously enjoy for the rest of my life. I am so happy I found this recipe - Thank you for posting (although years ago...). Beyond carrot cake...Incredible! Serving these for a baby shower tomorrow and making coconut nests with 2 jordan almond eggs to top them off (twins).

(As for the terrible comment above, it's pretty apparent they missed an accurate ingredient somewhere because this recipe was perfection...Perhaps they used coconut milk instead of coconut cream because my cake is identical to yours!)